A Model of Attitudes toward the Acceptance of Mobile Phone Use in Public Places

Brenda Mak, San Francisco State University

Robert C. Nickerson, San Francisco State University

Henri Isaac, University of Paris Dauphine

Abstract

Since the first commercial launch of cellular telecoms by NET in Tokyo Japan in 1979 and the launch of the NMT system in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden in 1981, the mobile phone has undergone continual incremental innovation for changing market needs. This study investigates the factors affecting the attitudes towards the social acceptance of mobile phones in public places and how this attitude affects its usage. Theories on innovation and technology acceptance were reviewed, and studies relating demographic factors to technology acceptance were examined. A model was proposed relating the usage frequency and attitudes towards acceptance of mobile phone in public places to demographic factors, such as country, age, education, gender, and work status. A survey was conducted among mobile phone users, and the sample consisted of 1079 respondents in the United States, France, Italy, Turkey, and Finland. A structural equation model was developed to analyze the survey data. Results of the analysis indicate that the attitudes about mobile phone use in public places depend on country, and age factors. This attitude in turn significantly affects the usage frequency of mobile phones. In addition, usage frequency also is affected by gender and work status. Implications of the findings for both academicians and practitioners are discussed.

Keywords: Attitudes about Mobile Phone Use, Simultaneous Relationships, Demographic Factors, Mobile Phone Voice Messaging, Mobile Phone Text Messaging

1. Introduction

1.1 The Use of Mobile Phones across Countries

The mobile phone is the most widely spread technology with a fast diffusion rate (Kim, 2005). Mobile phones have brought about improvements in the quality of life (Choi et al., 2007), and new commercial relationships, such as mobile banking (Ratten and Ratten, 2007), and mobile customer relationship management (Moedritscher and Mussnig, 2005), offering customers mobile messages with incentives for business, and providing customers with instant access to service information. The mobile phone has been in continual incremental innovation (Hacklin, Raurich, and Marxt, 2005) to meet changing market and customer needs.

In 1978 NTT DoCoMo launched the first commercial mobile phone service in Japan. Since then, the total number of mobile phone subscriptions in the world had reached 3 billion by July 2007 (Green, 2007). In the United States the number of mobile phones reached 233 million in 2006 (Central Intelligence Agency, 2008). In the same year, 466 million mobile phones were in use in the 27-country European Union and 461 million were used in China (Central Intelligence Agency, 2008). Mobile phone penetration varies by country, with some countries having no mobile phones and over 30 countries having a penetration rate of more than 100% (Wallace, 2006).

Mobile service adoption varies in different countries. Asia, and especially Japan, leads with NTT DoCoMo’s i-mode. This service has garnered 45 million subscribers since its first introduction in 1999, although only about 7 million of these are outside of Japan and none are in the U.S. (Bradley and Sandoval, 2002; NTT DoCoMo, 2008). South Korean is another Asian country with significant mobile services (Shim, 2005). Europe follows Asia in mobile services, although it leads the U.S.

1.2 The Case of NTT DoCoMo

In 1996, Koji Oboshi, president of NTT DoCoMo, foresaw that the demand for new mobile phones would soon peak. Mobile phones with new capabilities and services would need to be developed so consumers would trade in their old mobile for a new, improved one. (Bradley and Sandoval, 2002). Koji saw the future of wireless lay in non-voice, or data, communications. In 1997, NTT DoCoMo worked on a new service called i-mode (information mode, a 2G/3G mobile-Internet platform) to offer mobile Internet service to customers over their mobile phones (Kodama 2002). NTT DoCoMo started the i-mode service in the beginning of 1999. By collaborating with internet service providers (Jonason and Eliasson, 2001) and companies such as Sony Computer Entertainment and Sun Microsystems, improvements and new features were made to the phones (Kodama 2002). Mobile phones with i-mode had attracted 40 million users in Japan by the end of January 2004. However, the diffusion of i-mode overseas has been slow. Hung and Yeh (2007) suggested that different competitive climate overseas was part of the reason.

1.3 Research Problem

Another reason for the different diffusion rates in different countries may be the difference in the regulatory and cultural environments. According to Rogers (1995), an individual’s decision to adopt an innovation is not instantaneous but a process that occurs over time. An innovation is more readily accepted if its perceived adoption risk is low, and these perceived risks are related to its relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability and observability. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was proposed by Davis, Bagozzi, and Warsaw (1989) to model how users come to accept and use a technology. An individual’s actual use of a new technology is affected by his or her behavioral intention to use, which is in turn affected by the individual’s attitude towards the new technology. This attitude to new technology is affected by two key variables: perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use of the technology; both of which can be affected by external variables. Some of these external variables include psychographic factors such as user involvement (Jackson, Chow, and Leitch, 1997), self-efficacy (Davis, Bagozzi, and Warshaw, 1989), or demographic factors such as education (Agarwal and Prasad, 1999), age (Yang, 2005), gender (Venkatesh and Morris, 2000) and experience (Kim, 2008; Venkatesh and Davis, 2000). The model was later extended to include the effect of social influence (Venkatesh and Davis, 2000; Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, Davis, 2003), and social norm is an important element in affecting user acceptance.

In this research we analyze the impact of demographic factors on attitude to accept mobile phones socially, and how this attitude in turn affects the usage of mobile phones. The attitude of users towards the social acceptance of mobile phones is an important compatibility factor (Rogers, 1995). It is also an indication of the influence of social norm on the usage of mobile phone. The social acceptance of mobile phones can be culturally specific, and differ across countries. In addition to age, gender, education, experience, we also analyze the effect of country on attitude and usage.

The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of these demographic factors on the attitudes toward the social acceptance of mobile phones, and how the attitudes in turn affect actual usage of mobile phones. The attitudes toward social acceptance is examined in terms of the acceptance of mobile phone use in public places and social situations, where the prohibition of use could be the result of government regulations, a specific business’s rules, or local customs. As mobile phones may be used for voice and text messaging in public, we investigate how the attitudes toward the acceptance of mobile phone use in public places, as a latent construct, might be observed in terms of individual attitudes toward the acceptance of voice and text mobile communication in public places. The perceived user attitudes toward acceptance are measured in two aspects: (i) attitudes toward the acceptance of mobile phone voice messaging in public places, and (ii) attitudes toward the acceptance of mobile phone text messaging in public places.

To assess these relationships, a survey was conducted among university students in the United States, France, Turkey, Italy, and Finland. From an academic point of view, this study enriches our understanding of mobile phone attitudes and usage behavior, and their relationship to demographic factors. From a practical point of view, the study helps us to understand the needs and perception of each group of users. Providers might design mobile phone plans, promotion and marketing suitable to the needs of different user groups. In the following sections, we review the literature on mobile phone use and develop our model, describe the methodology of the study, present the results and limitations of our study, discuss the implications of the findings and suggest possible directions for future research.

2. Theories on Acceptance of New Technology

In 1962, Rogers introduced the theory on the diffusion of innovation (Rogers, 1995). Here diffusion is described as “a process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system." In this process, the individual “passes from gaining initial knowledge of the innovation, to forming an attitude toward the innovation, to making a decision to adopt or reject, to implementation of the new idea, and to the confirmation of this decision.” During this process, the new technology is evaluated against various criteria or attributes, in order to reduce uncertainties involved in replacing the existing one with a new one. Some of these uncertainties may arise related to the perceptions of the innovation’s relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability and observability. According to Rogers, people’s attitude toward a new technology is a key element in its diffusion.

The Technology Acceptance Model was proposed by Davis et al. (1989) to model the factors affecting a user’s acceptance of a new technology. TAM is an extension of theory of reasoned action (TRA), proposed by Ajzen and Fishbein (1975), to explain and predict the behavioral intention and actual behavior of people (Legris, Ingham, and Collerette , 2003). In TRA, an individual’s actual behavior is affected by his or her behavioral intention, which is in turn affected by the individual’s attitude towards the behavior, as well as the individual’s subjective norm. The individual’s subjective norm is affected by his or her normative beliefs and motivation to comply, while the individual’s attitude toward behavior is affected by his or her beliefs and evaluations.

Similar to TRA, in the Technology Acceptance Model, an individual’s actual use of a new technology is also affected by his or her behavioral intention to use, which is in turn affected by the individual’s attitude towards the new technology. However, this attitude to new technology is affected by two key variables: perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use of the technology; both of which can be affected by external variables.

Some of the external variables included demographic factors. For example, Agarwal and Prasad (1999) found that age, gender, education, experience directly or indirectly affect attitudes, usage, and satisfaction of information systems. Porter and Donthu (2006) developed and tested an extended version of the Technology Acceptance Model to consider demographic factors. They found that age, education, income and race are associated differentially with beliefs about the Internet, and that these beliefs influence a consumer's attitude toward and use of the Internet. Yang (2005) explored how Singaporeans are influenced to adopt the M-commerce. TAM was applied to examine factors affecting Singaporeans' attitudes toward this emerging mobile technology and applications. It was also found consumer innovativeness, past adoption behavior, technology cluster adoption, age, and gender affect their adoption behavior. Results from multiple regression analyses further reveal that male respondents tend to perceived M-commerce favorably.

Venkatesh and Davis (2000) extended the Technology Acceptance Model to TAM2. User acceptance was found to be significantly influenced by social influence processes (subjective norm, voluntariness, and image) and cognitive instrumental processes (job relevance, output quality, result demonstrability, and perceived ease of use) TAM2 was empirically supported with longitudinal test data collected regarding four different systems at four organizations, two involving voluntary usage and two involving mandatory usage.

Venkatesh et al. (2003) proposed the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) by reviewing eight models on user acceptance. The UTAUT aims to explain user intentions to use an information system and subsequent usage behavior. The theory holds that four key constructs (performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions) are direct determinants of usage intention and behavior. Gender, age, experience, and voluntariness of use are posited to mediate the impact of the four key constructs on usage intention and behavior. The eight models reviewed are the theory of reasoned action, the Technology Acceptance Model, the motivational model, the theory of planned behavior, a model combining the Technology Acceptance Model and the theory of planned behavior, the model of PC utilization, the innovation diffusion theory, and the social cognitive theory. UTAUT was empirically tested and found to outperform the eight individual models.

3. A Model of Attitudes toward Mobile Phone Use in Public Places

As suggested by Venkatesh et al. (2003), social influence is one important determinant of usage intention and behavior. Therefore the attitude of users about the social acceptance of mobile phones in public places and their use in public places will be important in affecting usage intention and behavior. In addition, demographic factors such as gender, age, experience, education, are posited to affect this attitude toward social use of mobile phones and usage behavior (Agarwal and Prasad, 1999; Porter and Donthu, 2006; Yang, 2005). As indicated by the case of NTT DoCoMo i-mode (Kodama 2002, Jonason and Eliasson. 2001), which has been accepted in Japan more readily than in other countries (Hung and Yeh, 2007), we posit in our model that country is an important factor in affecting both the attitude of acceptance and usage behavior. In particular our model examines how country as a factor affects attitude and usage frequency, in addition to other demographic factors such as age, gender, experience and education. Figure 1 shows the model we propose. In the model, the attitude of users is affected by users’ demographic factors, specifically country, age, education, work status, and gender. In turn the attitude of users affects users’ usage frequency of mobile phones.

Insert Figure 1 here

3.1 Attitudes about Mobile Phone Use in Public Places

The popularity of mobile phones has resulted in their increasing use in public places. People may communicate with one another through mobile phones anytime in public places, such as restaurants, sidewalks, restrooms, and public transportation.

The use of mobile phones in public settings also caused the establishment of “simultaneous public and private spaces” (Ling, 2004), Many individuals consider the mobile phone an extension of their physical selves (Campbell, 2007), and symbolic representatives of individual identities. According to Turner, Love and Howell (2008), mobile phone users differed in the extent to which they feel comfortable making and receiving calls in different social contexts, and are less annoyed by others using mobile phones in locations where they themselves feel most comfortable making calls. Researchers found that an individual in a social situation might have three types of responses to a mobile phone call (Weilenmann and Larsson, 2001). The individual might move away from the social situation, remain in place but removed from the social engagement, or stay engaged socially. Murtagh (2001) noted that people try to create a private space in a limited public space when receiving mobile phone calls.

In many public places, people around the mobile phone users may be annoyed by the use of the mobile phones (Ling and Haddon, 2003). Common complaints included disturbance and irritation of the quietness caused by the loud talk and the ringing of mobile phones in public places. Mobile phone users engaging in this behavior were regarded as discourteous, intrusive and arrogant. In addition, people were concerned about the use of mobile phones in public places that might divert attention or caused danger. To limit improper uses, several solutions have been suggested, including imposing penalties, asking users to exercise self-discipline, posting notices in public places, providing structured guidelines on websites, and providing patrons with a list of areas in which use is permitted (Lever and Katz, 2007).

Most of the complaints about mobile phone use in social settings focused on the loud talking and ringing associated with the voice functions of mobile phones. Compared with voice messaging, text messaging offers a less intrusive form of communication in public places. Short Message Service (SMS) or text messaging with mobile phones has been become a preferred means of communication (Faulkner and Culwin, 2005). The total figures for text messages sent in the United Kingdom in 2003 was 20.5 billion, and text messaging was viewed as a warm, personal, and cost-effective way to communicate. In France for example, a study of mobile phone use among the population shows that 89% of the people under 40 send text messages but only 47% of those over 40 send text messages (Observatoire Societal du telephone mobile, 2005). Text messaging may have a different impact in social settings than voice communication because it is less intrusive than voice. Thus both voice messaging and text messaging are important uses of the mobile phones.